The Secret World – Starter Guide

The Secret World is a fantastic game and one that everyone should experience. When starting out, the game can seem a little confusing, so I am putting together some Secret World “Tips and Tricks” to remember when starting out.

1. Choose a Faction

There are three Factions in the game – Illuminati, Templar, and Dragon.

Whichever faction you choose only matters in terms of the starting City and who you will be interacting with in Faction type quests. Keep in mind that you can party with your friends of another Faction but you cannot join there Cabal (Cabal is a Guild in TSW) and also you cannot fight with them in PVP. These factors may influence your choice so keep those in mind if you’re playing with friends.

2. Gender Options

Gender does matter when it comes to clothing for your character. If you are using a male or female character the clothing items in the Shop and from decks will be different, so if you like a certain piece of clothing don’t expect it to be always an option for the opposite sex. Clothing is all cosmetic so remember whatever you choose as your starting outfit can be changed by unlocking new outfits or buying outfits from NPCs or off the Cash Shop.

Also your Faction does determine what types of decks and deck clothing you can unlock but not in relation to the starter decks as they are all the same.

3. Starting Weapons

After you have created a character you will end up choosing a starting weapon that you will use for most of the game starting out. Keep in mind that you can use any weapon in the game, you are not stuck with using the weapon you first choose. Before choosing your weapon take a look at the ability wheel by pressing “N” or going through the menu in the upper left corner. Once in the ability wheel you can look at the different weapon abilities and also check out the different decks put into place by Funcom. This will give you a good idea as to where you want to go with your build and what weapon you will want to start off with.

Also you can use two weapons at one time in the game, in which you will want to do. Each weapon types have synergies between one another and the different decks available will teach you how these synergies work between different weapons.

4. Mission Types

There are several mission types in the game to choose from but you are limited to how many you can choose. You have Story Quests, Main Mission quests, Sabotage missions, and Investigation missions which take over one slot depending on which mission you choose, a dungeon mission slot, and three side mission slots. The story mission, you will follow the entire time throughout the game but these missions cannot be shared or repeated. The Main, Sabotage, Investigation or Side missions can be shared and repeated but they do have a cooldown after being completed each time. It may seem strange to only choose one mission at a time but the way that one mission is laid out makes sense and is very interesting and fun, you will not be disappointed.

5. Crafting

Crafting is important like any other MMO. The nice thing about crafting in TSW is that you do not have to learn how to craft something, as long as you have the components to craft something, then you can. Crafting may seem difficult at first but if you check out the many guides online then it will be easy to understand.

(I will be making a guide for crafting that will help you out)

6. Inventory

You can access your Inventory with “I” and you can make new bags and pin them. When you open your inventory, in the upper left corner you will see a + sign. Clicking the + will open a new bag in which you can re-size and rename. On these new bags, you can also click on the pin icon in the upper left of the bag which will cause your bag to stay on screen when you close your inventory.

7. Decks

Decks are pre-built abilities and weapons for the different factions. These decks will show you what weapons and abilities to use for your character. When starting out, choosing and following one of these decks is good for giving you an idea as to how weapons and abilities work together. In the end you will be constructing your own build, but it is good to start out following one of these builds. Also when you complete a deck you unlock a neat outfit to wear. You can follow all the decks if you want to unlock all the outfits available.

There is not a repec in the game, but in the end, you can unlock all abilities that are available, so don’t worry if you buy an ability you did not want.

8. London

London is the hub city. Regardless of what faction you end up choosing, London will be the place that you will go for all social aspects. London houses the auction house, barber shop, general merchandise shops, banks, and clothing shops.

Also, as a side note, in London there is a Taco merchant that you can buy Tacos from. You may also come across vending machines from all over the place which contain soda drinks. These food items ramp up your out of combat health regeneration rate which becomes very useful, plus these items are cheap so stock up.

9. Mounts

There are no mounts in TSW but you can sprint by toggling the “X” button on your keyboard. Also in your faction city you can buy faster sprint speeds from the Mobility Trainer in your Faction HQ. These faster sprints do cost in game money and you must be a certain Faction Rank to acquire them. Also, the Mobility Trainer sells other things that may be of interest to you, so keep them in mind when your are ready to upgrade your sprint and see what else they have for sale.

10. /reset

As you go around the various locations on the map you will unlock different resurrection locations. If you happen to die, these locations are used for you to re spawn. Once you re spawn you may walk back to your body to re spawn there or you can re spawn at the anima well (resurrection location). /reset is good for moving around the map very quickly if you need to go to another location and do not want to run there. If you die or use /reset (which will kill your character) you will re spawn at these resurrection points but you can (from a drop down list) move your character to any unlocked resurrection point. This is a very useful command and one to keep in mind and use when playing TSW. When you use /reset, you do not take durability loss on your gear, but you can not /reset during combat.

– Those are some quick tips and tricks to keep in mind when starting out in TSW. I will be adding more to PCGamer.biz so check back for new information, as well as information regarding the crafting guide.

* If you are on the fence about picking this game up, contact us for a 72-hour buddy key.